Disaggregating Deliberation’s Effects: An Experiment within a Deliberative Poll

Using data from a randomized field experiment within a Deliberative Poll, this paper examines deliberation’s effects on both policy attitudes and the extent to which ordinal rankings of policy options approach single-peakedness (a help in avoiding cyclical majorities). The setting was New Haven, Connecticut, and its surrounding towns; the issues were airport expansion and revenue sharing – the former highly salient, the latter not at all. Half the participants deliberated revenue sharing, then the airport; the other half the reverse. This split-half design helps distinguish the effects of the formal on-site deliberations from those of other aspects of the treatment. As expected, the highly salient airport issue saw only a slight effect, while much less salient revenue-sharing issue saw a much larger one.

[1]  James S. Fishkin,et al.  Considered Opinions: Deliberative Polling in Britain , 2002 .

[2]  Christian List,et al.  Deliberation, Single-Peakedness, and the Possibility of Meaningful Democracy: Evidence from Deliberative Polls , 2006, The Journal of Politics.

[3]  James S. Fishkin,et al.  Experimenting with a Democratic Ideal: Deliberative Polling and Public Opinion , 2005 .

[4]  R. McKelvey.  General Conditions for Global Intransitivities in Formal Voting Models , 1979 .

[5]  M. McCombs,et al.  The poll with a human face : the National Issues Convention experiment in political communication , 1999 .

[6]  D. Black.  On the Rationale of Group Decision-making , 1948, Journal of Political Economy.

[7]  Peter Neijens,et al.  DELIBERATIVE POLLS: TOWARD IMPROVED MEASURES OF “INFORMED” PUBLIC OPINION? , 1998 .

[8]  Ned Crosby,et al.  Citizens Juries: One Solution for Difficult Environmental Questions , 1995 .

[9]  D. Mill,et al.  The Possibility of Rational Outcomes from Democratic Discourse and Procedures , 1996 .

[10]  Ned Crosby,et al.  Citizen Panels: A New Approach to Citizen Participation. , 1986 .

[11]  Vincent Price,et al.  On the Public Aspects of Opinion , 1988 .

[12]  Jason Barabas,et al.  How Deliberation Affects Policy Opinions , 2004, American Political Science Review.

[13]  K. Arrow.  Social Choice and Individual Values , 1951 .

[14]  Joel Waldfogel,et al.  Introduction , 2010, Inf. Econ. Policy.

[15]  J. Knight,et al.  Aggregation and Deliberation: On the Possibility of Democratic Legitimacy , 1994 .

[16]  James S. Fishkin,et al.  The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy , 1995 .

[17]  Susan C. Stokes.  Deliberative Democracy: Pathologies of Deliberation , 1998 .

[18]  K. Arrow,et al.  Social Choice and Individual Values , 1951 .

[19]  James N. Druckman,et al.  Political Preference Formation: Competition, Deliberation, and the (Ir)relevance of Framing Effects , 2004, American Political Science Review.

[20]  Martin Gilens,et al.  Political Ignorance and Collective Policy Preferences , 2001, American Political Science Review.

[21]  Richard G. Niemi,et al.  Majority Decision-Making with Partial Unidimensionality , 1969, American Political Science Review.

[22]  Robert C. Luskin.  Thinking about Political Psychology: From Denial to Extenuation (and Finally Beyond): Political Sophistication and Citizen Performance , 2002 .

[23]  Tali Mendelberg.  THE DELIBERATIVE CITIZEN: THEORY AND EVIDENCE , 2009 .

[24]  David Miller,et al.  Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice , 1992 .

[25]  Bernard Manin,et al.  The principles of representative government , 1995 .

[26]  David F. Sally.  Conversation and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas , 1995 .

[27]  P. Converse.  The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics , 2004 .

[28]  Steven J. Brams,et al.  Single-Peakedness and Disconnected Coalitions , 2002 .

[29]  D. Kinder,et al.  Opinion and action in the realm of politics. , 1998 .

[30]  John Orbell,et al.  Explaining discussion-induced cooperation. , 1988 .

[31]  A. Downs.  An Economic Theory of Democracy , 1957 .

[32]  Nicolas de Condorcet.  Essai Sur L'Application de L'Analyse a la Probabilite Des Decisions Rendues a la Pluralite Des Voix , 2009 .

[33]  Diana C. Mutz,et al.  Facilitating Communication across Lines of Political Difference: The Role of Mass Media , 2001, American Political Science Review.

[34]  J. Bargh,et al.  Social cognition and social perception. , 1987, Annual review of psychology.

[35]  John Gastil,et al.  By Popular Demand: Revitalizing Representative Democracy Through Deliberative Elections , 2000 .

[36]  N. Schofield,et al.  Instability of Simple Dynamic Games , 1978 .

[37]  C. List,et al.  Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation , 2002, British Journal of Political Science.

[38]  Jennifer L. Hill.  An Extension and Test of Converse’s “Black-and-White” Model of Response Stability , 2001, American Political Science Review.

[39]  S. Keeter,et al.  What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters , 1996 .

[40]  J. Dovidio,et al.  Reducing intergroup bias: elements of intergroup cooperation. , 1999, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[41]  Peter Neijens,et al.  Opinion quality in public opinion research , 1997 .

[42]  Christian List,et al.  Two Concepts of Agreement , 2002 .

[43]  D. Apter,et al.  Ideology and discontent , 1966 .

[44]  James S. Fishkin,et al.  Bringing Deliberation to the Democratic Dialogue , 1999 .

[45]  James S. Fishkin,et al.  Deliberative Polling and Policy Outcomes: Electric Utility Issues in Texas , 1999 .